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Three

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FREEDOM, COERCION, AND THE SEARCH FOR THE IDEAL COMMUNITY

Rhetoric, conceptualized as the purposive use of eloquent communication, is one of the grandest tools available to humans. It can be animated and guided by a range of orientations in both speaker and audience member. In other words, various ways of valuing self and other lie behind a variety of its specific instantiations. Before we can identify a positive sense of rhetoric and communicative means in Kant’s architectonic thought, it is important to see the ends at which rhetoric might be aimed and the sort of orientation it ought to instantiate. As the previous chapter indicates, one of Kant’s reservations about rhetoric was a moral consideration—rhetors treated their audience members as machines or objects to be moved about, not like free rational agents. This objection is clearly in line with Kant’s primary value of freedom. Indeed, in his lectures on ethics (as recorded by Collins), given in the winter semester of 1784–85, Kant claims that since humans alone can motivate their actions from considerations separate from the realm of nature, “Freedom is thus the inner worth of the world” (LEC 27:344).¹ Yet freedom is not a given in this ultimate and valuable sense. It easily can be rendered nonideal. If freedom is lawless and random by being tied to changeable and nonsustainable inclinations, Kant finds that “insofar as it [freedom] is not restrained under certain rules of conditioned employment, it is the most terrible thing there could ever be. . . . If freedom is not restricted by objective rules, the result is much savage disorder” (27:344). This notion of freedom and its related concept—autonomy—are vitally important for Kant’s moral system. If his moral philosophy amounts to anything of enduring value, it must be in positing an endpoint for our endeavors to become better individuals and better group members through freedom.

What is at stake for rhetoric in Kant’s political philosophy? One way to answer this question is by evoking a common distinction, that between coercion and persuasion. Persuasion is typically seen as the desirable member of this distinction, since coercion seems to rest on the use of one-sided force. One coerces me into a car at gun point, against my choice and wishes; alternatively, one might persuade me to follow them by using words with which I agree. This is a standard way of parsing the forces involved in each of these activities. Coercion seems problematic because it violates a sort of value we place on selves as agents. Persuasion is often connected to our rhetorical activities, since such practical discussion and argument move people in purposive ways without resorting to overt force. What Kant contributes to this distinction is complexity—Kant’s views on rhetoric move it closer to a coercion with words, and his views on political philosophy hold a rational role for the coercing of individuals through threats of force and punishment. Thus rests the complex fortunes of freedom and human agency in a world filled with subtle and explicit forces that often threaten action based on reason. Kant’s moral and political philosophy not only holds obstacles to seeing a vibrant role for rhetoric in the public sphere but also creates the challenge that I argue rhetoric can solve: how we can use persuasion, not force, to effectively create better agents and communities.

This chapter sets the stage for the reading of Kantian rhetoric as moral persuasion that I wish to give. Revising the role for rhetoric in Kant means being clear on the permissible ends that rhetoric may be called on to achieve and the ways in which such ends can be achieved without violating the respect we owe to other agents. In other words, the task is to give a reading of rhetoric as allowable persuasion, not as manipulative use of coercive forces. Differentiating manipulative communication from nonmanipulative communication implies a conception of individual autonomy, as well as a notion of coercion of otherwise free agents. I argue that Kant’s moral system posits autonomy—in its individual and systemic instantiations—as the ultimate moral end. Later chapters make the case that rhetoric is an important means by which humans can cash out the promise of socialized living that Kant emphasizes in his anthropology lectures, published as Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View: “The human being is destined by his reason to live in a society with human beings and in it to cultivate himself, to civilize himself, and to moralize himself by means of the arts and sciences. No matter how great his animal tendency may be to give himself over passively to the impulses of ease and good living, which he calls happiness, he is still destined to make himself worthy of humanity by actively struggling with the obstacles that cling to him because of the crudity of his nature” (7:324–25). We are destined to cultivate ourselves into free, autonomous moral agents. Creating and sustaining political communities of a certain sort are part of this process, but what else can we do to overcome the obstacles of our human nature? I ultimately argue that rhetoric—eloquent human communication—serves as one clear means of moral cultivation in Kant’s system. Rhetoric in its nonmanipulative form is an important means to move humans toward the dispositions constitutive of true freedom.

Yet I must provide a rough sketch as to what this moral system entails. Using the central idea of freedom, this chapter examines the problematics of two of Kant’s most famous works: the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) and the Metaphysics of Morals (1797). As discussed in the previous chapter, there is evidence that the first text was intended as some sort of rejoinder to Christian Garve and the popular philosophers, so our examination starts there. Whatever its intentions, the Groundwork’s exposition of the core of Kant’s philosophy has had important intellectual impacts; Paul Guyer notes that it “has remained one of the most important and influential works in modern moral philosophy since it was published in 1785. . . . The Groundwork can be regarded as the paradigmatic expression of the ideals of the European Enlightenment.”² While Kant’s ideas on autonomy evolved, the Groundwork remains a vital expression of this central value and endpoint in Kant’s moral thought. Indeed, one can see the Groundwork as putting “before us an image of the nobility of the life we can lead if we try to regulate our conduct by the fundamental principle of morality instead of acting out of self-interest and excusing our so acting by denying our own freedom.”³

The task of this chapter is to flesh out this image of the moral agent and freedom as an individual and communal ideal in Kant’s Groundwork and Metaphysics of Morals. This notion of freedom can be seen both as freedom from sensuous causes such as inclination and as freedom of positive determination (through the moral law). This composite notion of freedom is what Kant refers to as “autonomy,” or the self-direction through the moral lawgiving of one’s will. Kant’s reading of the value of autonomy is complex, and its details evolved from the 1780s to the late 1790s. Thus, this chapter first examines Kant’s exposition of the moral law through its various formulations in the Groundwork before considering his later work on the value of freedom. The Groundwork is an incredibly rich starting point for explicating Kant’s ethical system and, as such, has been addressed by a multitude of Kant scholars, including Allen Wood, Henry Allison, and Paul Guyer.⁴ This chapter cannot supplant such detailed work; indeed, it heavily relies on interpretations and arguments exposed in this tradition of Kant scholarship. I emphasize one reading of the sequence of various formulations of the moral law to highlight the notions of freedom and moral cultivation that assumes importance in later chapters. Such a progression in the Groundwork eventually culminates with the autonomy of a specific agent imagined in harmony with all other such agents (viz., the ideal of the kingdom of ends). This transition is discussed, since it signals a transition from individual notions of autonomy to a harmony of universal legislators (agents) that individual moral acts presuppose as an ideal. After this has been examined, Kant’s discussion of this idealized kingdom of ends in Groundwork III is examined in regard to how the two-fold perspective of the world of nature and the intelligible world (the kingdom of ends) relates to the human agent. Kant was always fascinated by the dual nature of humans—both as creatures of the natural, causal world and putatively of the moral realm of reason. While humans are torn between both realms, the ultimate message of the Groundwork is that humans must presuppose their participation in the intelligible realm and, more important, tailor their actions and exercises of will to approximate this state in their physical condition. Kant’s Groundwork sets this project in both individual and communal terms, a theme that is magnified in the analysis of his Metaphysics of Morals in the latter half of this chapter.

Formulations of the Categorical Imperative

In his analysis of moral worth in the Groundwork, Kant argues that the moral law can be expressed in a variety of formulations. Grounding all these abstractions, however, is a simple but powerful conception of the “good will.” What makes us moral or virtuous? Kant begins the Groundwork by examining the source of moral worth in human actions and dispositions. He points out that all “virtues” and characteristics, such as strength and coolness, can be used for vicious purposes, rendering their value only conditionally good—dependent on certain purposes, situations, and so on. What is morally good must be absolutely good for Kant; even considerations of specific outcomes desired by an agent do not hold as unconditional, as these results can be thwarted by unfortunate luck, natural circumstances, and so forth. They also do not necessarily hold for all desiring agents. The ultimate conclusion of Groundwork I is that the good will is the highest, unconditioned good. The notion of the good will is integrally connected to the notion of duty, which “contains that of a good will though under certain subjective limitations and hindrances, which . . . bring it [the good will] out by contrast and make it shine forth all the more brightly” (GMM 4:397). A human being can possess this good will, but having such a will requires a constitution that includes alternate motivations and temptations, such as the inclinations or desires. These factors result in the human being not being subjectively necessitated by the moral law; in other words, it is not specified in advance that they will do the right thing. Duty is a command on agents, one that they may or may not actually follow. Individual agents are objectively determined by this notion of duty, which stems from the imperative of the moral law. Subjective determination appears to be the uncertain domain of control of individual agents with their reason and inclinations. What is crucial to Kant’s conception of duty is that an action is done from duty, not merely in accord with duty. Only the former has moral worth, whereas the latter could be done for less-than-worthy reasons (self-love, greed, etc.). Kant’s well-known example of this from his Groundwork is that of the honest shopkeeper who doesn’t raise his prices just to take advantage of an immature (or gullible) client. When is such an external action (not manipulating prices) morally worthy? Kant’s basic answer is that it is morally worthy when an agent does it out of respect for that action being the right thing to do, as opposed to doing it simply to avoid gaining a bad reputation. The former motivation is moral; the latter is merely prudential—simply another way to sate one’s own desires through business activities.

For Kant, individual agents are subjectively determined by their maxim, a principle of volition within the subjects themselves. We choose to be kind to our friend Paul, say, since we make it a rule to be kind to our friends. We may act from this general maxim with a very specific action, such as providing them a drink in a favorite cup. Such maxims may or may not attain the functional status of a practical law, which is an objective principle of volition that all should have (GMM 4:401). Kant maintains that individuals are objectively, but not subjectively, necessitated by the moral law—otherwise such agents would be “holy wills,” constrained to will from duty on every occasion. Individual agents can have moral worth if and only if they choose to act from duty. But what is duty? To answer this question, Kant provides his analysis of the moral law in Groundwork II.

Duty, for Kant, is integrally connected to the source of determination of individual rational agents and thereby is connected to the sense of freedom that Kant is interested in fostering (viz., autonomy). A brief sketch of how human agency is related to the moral law in Kant’s scheme suffices for our purpose of delineating his notion of freedom.⁵ In Groundwork II he analyzes the concept of the moral law and its relation to rational beings to discern the possibility of such a moral imperative. Kant operates on the assumption that everything in the world that we can experience (including our own actions) must operate according to some sort of law. The unique feature of rational beings is that they can represent their possible actions in accordance with a representation of laws (principles), such as “always be kind to friends.” This capacity to formulate principles or maxims on which the subject acts is constitutive of the agent’s will (Wille). One’s will is subjectively contingent, since reason does not always determine it (GMM 4:412). All rational beings are subject to objective principles of action, which Kant labels as “imperatives.” Some of these are hypothetical, which command a certain action in certain conditions. For instance, if agents want to win a baseball game, they should attempt to score more runs than their opponents. This will not do for a moral command, since one may not desire the initially stated goal (e.g., winning that game). What Kant wants for the foundation of morality is a moral law (imperative) that commands categorically and in an unconditioned manner. Such a categorical imperative is found in the moral law; all other imperatives are conditioned and have the status of a principle, but only the categorical imperative has the status of a practical law (4:420). Such an imperative must be removed from any sensuous conditions, such as desires and inclinations, since those would render it conditioned—not everyone has those traits, nor are their desires always the same. Instead, the moral law (the categorical imperative) contains nothing beyond the form of universal law and the necessity that individual maxims be in conformity with this law. This has historically been a problematic move for Kant, but it is where he starts. Kant provides the first formulation of this categorical imperative, referred to as the Formula of Universal Law (FUL)—“act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law.” Kant further explains this law with respect to the state of nature; just as everything in the physical world occurs according to laws, so one should “act as if the maxim of your action were to become by your will a universal law of nature” (4:421). This second formulation can be referred to as the Formula of the Universal Law of Nature (FULN). It simply amplifies the former with an analogy to the operation of laws in the realm of nature or the physical universe. Overall, the objective determinant of rational willing is this categorical imperative, even though we are not actually necessitated (subjectively) to follow it. Duty consists in the demand that individuals make their subjective maxim of volition conform to this universal form of willing.

These two delineations of the first formulation of the categorical imperative may not be as clear as one would hope.⁶ This problem, however, is alleviated somewhat when Kant discusses the other formulations of the moral law. Before those formulations are discussed, a few important details of this formulation (taking FUL as subsuming the essential features of FULN) should be noted. One notices that the formal aspect that Kant is drawing on in this formulation is nonsensuous and does not include material from the physical world. It is the mere form of one’s maxim that is tested by FUL. This form must be capable of being universalized, which provides two important tests of a maxim—it must either be able to be thought without contradiction or it must be able to be coherently willed by the agent. As Kant indicates, “Some actions are so constituted that their maxim cannot even be thought without contradiction as a universal law of nature, far less could one will that it should become such” (GMM 4:424). The first test involves the logical possibility of the universalization of a certain maxim to all rational agents involved. For instance, false promises to others cannot be consistently willed as universal law (or as a universal law of nature) because doing so would result in the putative collapse of the institution (promising) that allows promise breaking to happen. Additionally, suicide operates on a maxim that also would be impossible to be thought as universal law, as Kant finds that it involves a contradiction with the same maxim that preserves life (4:422). What the examples of false promising and suicide represent are the classes of perfect duties to one’s self and to others. They are negative in that they forbid a certain maxim and its entailed action (lying, suicide) because the maxim cannot be conceived of as universal law.